So the other day was my last day at the factory. I had already told the boss a week beforehand that I would be leaving soon. But not this soon. I had originally intended to finish out the second week of July. Instead I just told him at the end of the night. He wasn’t angry and Mohawk insisted that you have to do what’s best for you, but I still feel like I let him down.
Given the nature of this work, people come in and out a lot. Over the factory’s eleven year history there have been many employees who have worked one night only. Many more who have worked for a week or two. Most people don’t last very long. And it’s very rare that somebody calls in ahead of time. For this reason the boss usually keeps a list of people on call - those who are desperate or between jobs and are willing to show up at the drop of a hat. That’s how I got started. And when I did get started, I was very close to being one of those people who just stopped showing up to work. Everyone starts on the assembly line. You stand for the whole six and a half to eight hour shift (depending on the size of the order) in one of the most monotonous activities i’ve ever performed. After the first hour your back and calves are killing you, by the end of the shift even the most fit of us couldn’t stand up straight.
But I stuck with it. And I never ever complained about my job, not once. Not one single time, ever. Perhaps that was why they took a liking to me. I never even slowed down; I would take one break a night to pray and that was it. Everyone else was whining and chain smoking while I was doing my job. I was promoted up to the machine operator rather quickly.
“He has the hardest job in here,” I once heard Mohawk say about me when venting about how much the Spanglish lady complained. “And I never heard that dude complain ever.” It’s not that my job required a lot of skill; it just requires a lot of hand-eye coordination and the ability to multitask. I had to simultaneously manage and clean the entire back area of the factory by myself. Mohawk used to try to sneak to the back to help me out or just shoot the breeze though the boss’s wife usually called him back up front quickly. It was easily the most dangerous job at the factory as well, due to the moving parts. Kenyatta, whom I never met but performed this job before me, had his entire hand crushed in the machine in less than two seconds. He was fortunate that they didn’t have to cut it off.
But I never complained. I never argued, I never said no, and I never refused to perform any duty that was asked of me. In the entire four months that I worked there, I only remember asking to go to the bathroom three times. I swear by Allaah to the truth of that. Every other day I just held it until after we finished. I didn’t even take breaks to hydrate or eat; I would drink a bottle of water or eat a piece of chicken in one hand while keeping the other on whatever lever or piston or button I was using at the moment. And when I got word of the current job I now have, I called the boss and told him I intended to leave after the second week of July. He was very cool about it, stating that people need to move on and that he wouldn’t have a problem finding someone, because that’s what he always does. But just give him another notice a week ahead of time so he could look.
Over the past few weeks, the boss’s wife/our supervisor had become increasingly difficult. She was more short with us, becoming angry quicker and always in a poor mood. It’s a high stress environment but there was a noticeable degeneration in her behavior lately. That night in particular she was upset at me for not monitoring the sieve enough. So I began paying extra attention to the sieve, which necessitates that I devote less time to other parts of the machine. I tried cleaning the rollers and when she saw this she became angry, snatching the scraper from my hand and instructing me to keep watching the sieve. So I do what she says, whatever. I am irritated at being yelled at so much but I brush it off.
About ten minutes later, Mohawk comes into the back. “She’s pissed at you, dude. She says you aren’t cleaning the rollers enough.” Now I was confused as to what exactly she wanted me to do. Did she want me to focus on one or the other? The instructions were not clear.
As this was all happening, time was rolling on and my window for the maghrib prayer was almost gone. Normally I never have to ask since that’s the only thing I ever stop working for; everyone knows that once a night I pray and that I only have just over an hour to do so. The boss’s wife knows and even expects it, and usually relieves me of work for five minutes so I can go. As she was running back and forth between my area and the front, she seemed distracted and was constantly on the phone with the boss arguing about something. I asked her if I could go pray now, which every so often I need to do, and she said in just a minute. Which happens frequently, as she often needs to go tend to something or make sure everyone else knows what they’re doing before handling my job for five minutes.
Time continues rolling on and I keep wondering when I would get to take my break. My area in the back is deafeningly loud; someone standing three feet from you could scream and you’d have difficulty hearing it. I can’t hear what goes on up front and nobody can hear me, but I can look down from the ladders and vaguely see movement in the front area through the mess of pipes, cables, and belts. My coworkers were all taking rests, getting 10+ minute breaks to smoke cigarettes, getting to go to the bathroom, walking over to the nearby gas station for refreshments, all the things they normally do which are alright. And the Kurdish guy who works the racks and is also Muslim got to pray maghrib as well. All the while, I wait in the back patiently for my one break of the night to come to no avail. The machines run with or without me and devotion to being a good worker, I didn’t want to just leave my post. Leaving it unattended could very well cause a fire or even a gas leak, both of which have occurred previously. I always took the level of danger that came with my job seriously and expected to be allowed to pray in return. But I was wondering why everyone up front was well tended to and all of a sudden I was forgotten in the back. Had I passed out from heat stroke or gotten embers in my eyes, they wouldn’t have known unless Mohawk managed to sneak to the back again to chill with me.
This was the real sticking point. The rudeness I had dealt with over the past few weeks was bearable (though neither acceptable nor professional). But why had I just been left there in the back? I don’t go to the bathroom. I don’t stop for food or water breaks. I don’t ask for smoke breaks. I’ve never asked for a raise. I deal with pests even though it’s not my job to do so. I once even cleaned rat feces from the walls despite the possibility of it being toxic (depending on the health of the rats). And, as attested to by my coworkers, I had never complained once during my whole time at the factory. So why was I being ignored and the rest of my coworkers were getting multiple breaks per night as usual? It seemed disrespectful at the least.
Finally at some point the boss’s wife tells me I can go pray, though upon arriving at the front I asked the Kurdish guy if I had missed maghrib and he almost seemed confused that I would bother asking. There wasn’t even that much time left until the half of the night. I already knew but hearing it confirmed just bothered me even more, and I fought to actually pay attention during my prayer. I returned to my station only to be berated for the rest of the night about ignoring the sieve, and then ignoring the rollers. I value my ability to control my anger and as a rule do not raise my voice at women, but it was very difficult not simply walk out then and there. I was so angry that my hands were visibly shaking and my heart rate had increased enough to make my physically uncomfortable. I will say with no ego that I was the best employee the factory had. Where else could they find someone who was willing to work nine and a half hour shifts - which I had done multiple times - without even asking to pee? Mohawk and the Kurdish guy also didn’t complain, but they both were allowed several breaks a night in addition to working much fewer hours than me (nobody else can start working until I get the machines started and i’m usually the last person to clock out) and didn’t have as strenuous a job as mine. But everyone else, including the boss’s wife, were non-stop whining machines. The temperature up front where everyone else worked rarely reached 95 degrees, yet they complained about the heat while I was standing just feet away from a blast furnace. They complained about the physical demand of standing around packaging while I was hauling anywhere from fifty to eighty pounds of calcium and/or salt up and down ladders every ten minutes. And yet they got plenty of break time. And I remember when working up front that the boss’s wife never even raised her voice at us, much less berated us. All of a sudden, I replace Danny - who was a heroin addict who constantly shot up in the bathroom at work and stole money from the boss, and yet was still never yelled at until the day the boss caught him in the act and threw him out - as the machine operator and I become a target for a combination of both neglect and abuse. It was completely counterintuitive and not worth the minimum wage plus some change that I was making an hour.
Mohawk finally manages to sneak to the back and I mention to him that I already have another job lined up, which would be paying more and would allow me to work from the computer (at least for the time being). I could start any time, but because of my respect for the boss I didn’t want to just leave before July as I had discussed with him the week or so before. It was difficult work but he hired me at a time when I had nowhere else to turn and he was already overstaffed. He was rarely on site due to the time he had to invest in the restaurant he was starting, but whenever he was he treated me with dignity and respect, in fact he treated everyone that way. He would even come to the back and start doing my job along with me, making jokes and observing how production was going that night. I was going to stick with this job despite making less money because I legitimately enjoyed working there; or at least, I did up until the last few weeks. It’s difficult to enjoy my job and stick to my choice when I was working the most difficult job yet being treated the least courteously. Mohawk laughed, incredulous that I was this troubled. “Dude, he understands that you have to do what’s best for you,” he said. “Just tell him you have a job which will pay you better and get you more skills, and you need to take the opportunity now (I only received the final word from them the previous afternoon). He’ll understand, man.” Which I suppose was true - the boss had spent years working low paying odd jobs in labor and agriculture before successfully building three businesses without any help or investors. But I couldn’t shake the strong feeling of guilt. I had given him my word that i’d finish out the second week of July. He had asked at the minimum just to remind him a week before my last day. Mohawk insisted he already knew somebody that was reliable and could replace me, but I felt like I was dipping out on the job.
The boss arrived, and I took him aside on the loading dock and told him about the new job. I told him this had honestly been the most rewarding and also the most fun job I had ever had - which, despite the difficulty of it, was and still is true - and that had I gotten word from this new place a week ago, I would have told him a week ago. He told me he understood and knew I had to do what I had to do, but I could see the disappointment in his eyes. He wasn’t angry; he felt let down. I had always been the most reliable person in the factory, the guy he knew he could count on to show up early and leave late, and now I was telling him at the end of the shift that it would be my last night there. The next night of production was only two days away. He asked if I still come in two days from then and have that be my last day, but Mohawk saw the apprehension in my eyes and jumped in.
“Look man, I know the boss will never say it. He’s thinking it but he’ll never say it, so i’ll just go ahead and do it. If you want to go, then go! There’s nothing we can do to stop you. And everything will work out in the end because we know you’ll be back anyway.”
The laughter eased up the awkwardness. Mohawk, who is a big, lanky guy - 6′1″, maybe 6′2″ - used to be overweight back before I knew him. “I used to be fat man, and I know that look. It’s the look people get when the attention is on them and they don’t like it.” I got his number, told the boss that i’d still stop by from time to time to help out or keep everyone company, and rolled out. For the second time in my adult life I felt sad. Not sad like when your team loses the game, or your friends hang out and forget to call you. I mean that real, legitimate sadness you feel down in your guts. The kind of sadness that makes you want to drive out into the middle of nowhere and just sleep in your car for a few days. This was the first job I had ever gotten without the aid of nepotism. It was the first time I had received a promotion in a place where I hadn’t known anyone there prior to working there. It was the first time I really felt like this was my job, and I belong here. The boss always made you feel like family. Like all manual labor jobs, we weren’t paid much but when he was around he did his best to make everyone feel like he cared. And now I felt like I had let him down. I was just another one of those guys who up and left with a day’s notice over the eleven year history of the place. I know I should be happy for moving on, accepting a more cushy job, and growing up a bit. But despite everything that occurred, all I feel is this unexplainable sense of regret.
